Chapter 9 The language of emotions from Descartes to Metastasio

Abstract

This volume explores the possibilities of cognate music theory, a concept introduced by musicologist John Walter Hill to describe culturally and historically situated music theory. Cognate music theories offer a new way of thinking about music theory, music history, and the relationship between insider and outsider perspectives when researchers mediate between their own historical and cultural position, and that of the originators of the music they are studying. With contributions from noted scholars of musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology, this volume develops a variety of approaches using the cognate music theory framework and shows how this concept enables more nuanced and critical analyses of music in historical context. Addressing topics in music from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, this volume will be relevant to musicologists, music theorists, and all researchers interested in reflecting critically on what it means to construct a theory of music.